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Background: Stress and sedentary lifestyles negatively impact the physical fitness of overweight and obese female university students. Physical activity has been shown to promote psychological as well as physical wellness. However, the effects of Surya Namaskar (SN) yoga on stress and physical fitness remain unclear.

Objective: This study aimed to compare the physical fitness, anthropometric measures, and perceived stress between the SN yoga training program group and the control group.

Methods: In a randomized controlled study, 44 overweight and obese female university students participated. For 8 weeks, the exercise group received training in SN yoga, whereas the control group was not permitted to participate in any form of exercise. At baseline and after 8 weeks of training, all participants completed the Thai Perceived Stress Scale-10 (T-PSS-10), and assessed the body mass index (BMI), waist–hip ratio, body fat percentage, maximum oxygen consumption (VO₂max), and muscle strength and flexibility. We used the dependent t-test or Wilcoxon sign rank test to examine the differences between the T-PSS-10 and physical fitness within each group. The statistical differences of all parameters between the two groups were compared using an independent t-test or a Mann–Whitney U test. A p-$\mathrm{\text{value}}<0.05$ was considered statistically significant.

Results: Compared to the baseline, the SN yoga group’s post-training period had a significant increase ($p<0.05$) in forward back flexibility, hand grip strength, leg strength, and VO₂max, while a significant decrease ($p<0.05$) in T-PSS-10 scores and BMI. In addition, we found a significant difference between the both groups in forward back flexibility and T-PSS-10 scores in the post-training period ($p=0.015$ and $p=0.009$, respectively).

Conclusion: This study’s findings demonstrated that SN yoga is a useful exercise for enhancing overweight and obese female university students’ perceived stress scales and physical fitness.

One of the worrisome results of China’s post-1978 market reforms was that the village cooperative medical insurance plans established during the Mao era collapsed. As a consequence, by the early 2000s urban Chinese were much more likely to be covered by health insurance than were rural Chinese. During subsequent years, a major national effort led to dramatic increases in health insurance coverage for all Chinese and closed this gap, so that the rate of health insurance coverage for rural and urban Chinese is now virtually the same — both 94% in 2014, according to our survey results. However, our data reveal that in 2004, rural Chinese respondents were likely to rate their own physical and emotional health better than urban respondents. But in two subsequent national surveys, in 2009 and 2014, this unexpected advantage of rural Chinese in self-rated health largely disappeared or was replaced by the more “normal” pattern of urban residents rating their health better than their rural counterparts. Data from all three surveys are analyzed in an effort to understand the reasons for the more favorable views of Chinese villagers in 2004 and the subsequent disappearance of this paradoxical pattern.

This paper analyzes the current situation of psychological health among college students, to understand their existing health statuses. This can set the basis for improved development and teaching of content for the sports curriculum for future reference. 600 male and 400 female grade 2015 college students from Lanzhou University of Technology were randomly selected to take part in the study. The study demonstrated that the students passed national standards of 4 index tests: Body mass index, vital capacity, sit and reach, 1000 meters (800 meters). However, the test results for the remaining 2 index tests of standing long jump and pull ups were lower than the national standards.

Mind-body exercise, a form of physical exercise originating in the East with increasing popularity in the West, has a unique characteristic that requires conscious control of each body movement and concurrently maintaining a peaceful and relaxed state of mind during practice. With the ultimate goal of training both the body and the mind, there have been empirical findings supporting the positive effects of mind-body exercises on improving physical health condition (e.g., pulmonary function) as well as cognitive functions (e.g., learning and memory). This chapter will introduce a form of Chinese Chan-based mind-body exercise, namely Shaolin mind-body exercise or Chanwu, which was developed upon the traditional Shaolin Healing Approach. A brief description on some movements of Shaolin mind-body exercise will also be provided. Treatment outcomes based on both clinical observations and cumulative empirical evidence are so far encouraging. Specifically, intervention with the component of Shaolin mind-body exercise has been found to be able to foster a relaxed and attentive mind state of normal adults, significantly improve depressive mood and enhance bowel function and neurophysiological activity of both community-dwelling adults and patients with major depressive disorder. Some clinical cases with severe cognitive impairment have also been assessed to show significant enhancement in their attention, memory, language and executive functions. These positive findings have suggested potential clinical applicability of the Shaolin mind-body exercise as a possible neuropsychological intervention for improving cognitive function and psychological status of patients with various brain disorders or psychiatric illnesses.